Free The Bees

bostonlou

Kat wrote:

Are you saying the government is blowing up all the bees? :eek:

They're messing with the dolphins too....grrrrr.

Love and Peace,
Kat

it actually was a purple penguin

not a dolphin

Byrnzie

Kat wrote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/business/27bees.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin


Poor bees...maybe they just don't like being trucked around and being bred for pollination? Maybe they've just freed themselves?

Love,
Kat

That damn NYT page asks me to register or log on! :(

tara

tybird wrote:

I believe that the "Honey Bee" is Eurasian. There bee species native to Africa. There are also bee species native to North America, such as the Bumble Bee.

i couldn't resist this thread, i just started a masters, and my topic is on bee conservation. i'll try to keep this short
the honeybee is indeed a eurasian import, there is also an african honeybee, but due to a variety of traits, its not as good a pollinator, and so hasn't been cultivated for that purpose, problem is that it is cross breeding with the eurasan bees and diminishing their capacity to be good pollinators.
there are also a variety of bumblebes, many are native to north america, a few really interesting natives from the u.s. pacific northwest are on the brink of extinction. most farmers attribute pollination to honey bees, the thing is that honey bees are general pollinators and aren't the best for most crops, native organisms that have evolved to be specific pollinators of certain plants usually pick up the slack (which can be pretty big, natives can do 70% of the pollination). native pollinators can include a whole slew of other kinds of bees, or bats, flies, mice, or birds. i could go on, but i've got a paper to write on policies in ontario that allow for bee conservation

Byrnzie

my2hands wrote:

so Kat, are you a male or female? lets finally get some clarification on this

She's a free bee!

even flow?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWDRSktCYeY

Byrnzie

my2hands wrote:

so Kat, are you a male or female? lets finally get some clarification on this

Come on man, what dude signs off every post with the word 'Love'?

i.e,
Love
Byrnzie
:eek:
:rolleyes:
Not a man thing to do, is it! :cool:

Edit: She better be female, coz I propositioned her on Valentines day! :eek:

tybird

tara wrote:

i couldn't resist this thread, i just started a masters, and my topic is on bee conservation. i'll try to keep this short
the honeybee is indeed a eurasian import, there is also an african honeybee, but due to a variety of traits, its not as good a pollinator, and so hasn't been cultivated for that purpose, problem is that it is cross breeding with the eurasan bees and diminishing their capacity to be good pollinators.
there are also a variety of bumblebes, many are native to north america, a few really interesting natives from the u.s. pacific northwest are on the brink of extinction. most farmers attribute pollination to honey bees, the thing is that honey bees are general pollinators and aren't the best for most crops, native organisms that have evolved to be specific pollinators of certain plants usually pick up the slack (which can be pretty big, natives can do 70% of the pollination). native pollinators can include a whole slew of other kinds of bees, or bats, flies, mice, or birds. i could go on, but i've got a paper to write on policies in ontario that allow for bee conservation

Thanks for the back-up there.....and good luck on the masters.

even flow?

I am not a big fan of GM foods in the first place. Man playing "gods" role in how crops are developed is pretty fucking stupid. Nothing like taking a crop that has helped the human race live forever and deciding that crop now must die every year so the man can reap more profit from the real people of the planet. Could this be tied in to the fun and games?...........


http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/032307EA.shtml

Are GM Crops Killing Bees?
By Gunther Latsch
Der Spiegel

Thursday 22 March 2007

A mysterious decimation of bee populations has German beekeepers worried, while a similar phenomenon in the United States is gradually assuming catastrophic proportions. The consequences for agriculture and the economy could be enormous.
Walter Haefeker is a man who is used to painting grim scenarios. He sits on the board of directors of the German Beekeepers Association (DBIB) and is vice president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association. And because griping is part of a lobbyist's trade, it is practically his professional duty to warn that "the very existence of beekeeping is at stake."

The problem, says Haefeker, has a number of causes, one being the varroa mite, introduced from Asia, and another is the widespread practice in agriculture of spraying wildflowers with herbicides and practicing monoculture. Another possible cause, according to Haefeker, is the controversial and growing use of genetic engineering in agriculture.

As far back as 2005, Haefeker ended an article he contributed to the journal Der Kritischer Agrarbericht (Critical Agricultural Report) with an Albert Einstein quote: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

Mysterious events in recent months have suddenly made Einstein's apocalyptic vision seem all the more topical. For unknown reasons, bee populations throughout Germany are disappearing - something that is so far only harming beekeepers. But the situation is different in the United States, where bees are dying in such dramatic numbers that the economic consequences could soon be dire. No one knows what is causing the bees to perish, but some experts believe that the large-scale use of genetically modified plants in the US could be a factor.

Felix Kriechbaum, an official with a regional beekeepers' association in Bavaria, recently reported a decline of almost 12 percent in local bee populations. When "bee populations disappear without a trace," says Kriechbaum, it is difficult to investigate the causes, because "most bees don't die in the beehive." There are many diseases that can cause bees to lose their sense of orientation so they can no longer find their way back to their hives.

Manfred Hederer, the president of the German Beekeepers Association, almost simultaneously reported a 25 percent drop in bee populations throughout Germany. In isolated cases, says Hederer, declines of up to 80 percent have been reported. He speculates that "a particular toxin, some agent with which we are not familiar," is killing the bees.

Politicians, until now, have shown little concern for such warnings or the woes of beekeepers. Although apiarists have been given a chance to make their case - for example in the run-up to the German cabinet's approval of a genetic engineering policy document by Minister of Agriculture Horst Seehofer in February - their complaints are still largely ignored.

Even when beekeepers actually go to court, as they recently did in a joint effort with the German chapter of the organic farming organization Demeter International and other groups to oppose the use of genetically modified corn plants, they can only dream of the sort of media attention environmental organizations like Greenpeace attract with their protests at test sites.

But that could soon change. Since last November, the US has seen a decline in bee populations so dramatic that it eclipses all previous incidences of mass mortality. Beekeepers on the east coast of the United States complain that they have lost more than 70 percent of their stock since late last year, while the west coast has seen a decline of up to 60 percent.

In an article in its business section in late February, the New York Times calculated the damage US agriculture would suffer if bees died out. Experts at Cornell University in upstate New York have estimated the value bees generate - by pollinating fruit and vegetable plants, almond trees and animal feed like clover - at more than $14 billion.

Scientists call the mysterious phenomenon "Colony Collapse Disorder" (CCD), and it is fast turning into a national catastrophe of sorts. A number of universities and government agencies have formed a "CCD Working Group" to search for the causes of the calamity, but have so far come up empty-handed. But, like Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, they are already referring to the problem as a potential "AIDS for the bee industry."

One thing is certain: Millions of bees have simply vanished. In most cases, all that's left in the hives are the doomed offspring. But dead bees are nowhere to be found - neither in nor anywhere close to the hives. Diana Cox-Foster, a member of the CCD Working Group, told The Independent that researchers were "extremely alarmed," adding that the crisis "has the potential to devastate the US beekeeping industry."

It is particularly worrisome, she said, that the bees' death is accompanied by a set of symptoms "which does not seem to match anything in the literature."

In many cases, scientists have found evidence of almost all known bee viruses in the few surviving bees found in the hives after most have disappeared. Some had five or six infections at the same time and were infested with fungi - a sign, experts say, that the insects' immune system may have collapsed.

The scientists are also surprised that bees and other insects usually leave the abandoned hives untouched. Nearby bee populations or parasites would normally raid the honey and pollen stores of colonies that have died for other reasons, such as excessive winter cold. "This suggests that there is something toxic in the colony itself which is repelling them," says Cox-Foster.

Walter Haefeker, the German beekeeping official, speculates that "besides a number of other factors," the fact that genetically modified, insect-resistant plants are now used in 40 percent of cornfields in the United States could be playing a role. The figure is much lower in Germany - only 0.06 percent - and most of that occurs in the eastern states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg. Haefeker recently sent a researcher at the CCD Working Group some data from a bee study that he has long felt shows a possible connection between genetic engineering and diseases in bees.

The study in question is a small research project conducted at the University of Jena from 2001 to 2004. The researchers examined the effects of pollen from a genetically modified maize variant called "Bt corn" on bees. A gene from a soil bacterium had been inserted into the corn that enabled the plant to produce an agent that is toxic to insect pests. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a "toxic effect of Bt corn on healthy honeybee populations." But when, by sheer chance, the bees used in the experiments were infested with a parasite, something eerie happened. According to the Jena study, a "significantly stronger decline in the number of bees" occurred among the insects that had been fed a highly concentrated Bt poison feed.

According to Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a professor at the University of Halle in eastern Germany and the director of the study, the bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn may have "altered the surface of the bee's intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry - or perhaps it was the other way around. We don't know."

Of course, the concentration of the toxin was ten times higher in the experiments than in normal Bt corn pollen. In addition, the bee feed was administered over a relatively lengthy six-week period.

Kaatz would have preferred to continue studying the phenomenon but lacked the necessary funding. "Those who have the money are not interested in this sort of research," says the professor, "and those who are interested don't have the money."

---

Translated from German by Christopher Sultan.

dangerboy

even flow? wrote:

I am not a big fan of GM foods in the first place. Man playing "gods" role in how crops are developed is pretty fucking stupid. Nothing like taking a crop that has helped the human race live forever and deciding that crop now must die every year so the man can reap more profit from the real people of the planet. Could this be tied in to the fun and games?...........


http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/032307EA.shtml

Are GM Crops Killing Bees?
By Gunther Latsch
Der Spiegel

several years ago we had this issue here in north carolina....with gm corn and monarch butterflies. somebody in the west/central part of the state started growng some gm corn, and within two years, almost none of the butterflies came back after migration. i believe the state stepped in, and the butterflies returned to normal after a coule more years...

puremagic

Kat wrote:

Are you saying the government is blowing up all the bees? :eek:

They're messing with the dolphins too....grrrrr.

Love and Peace,
Kat

U.S. Navy asserts "state secrets" in sonar case
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070321/sc_nm/usa_navy_whales_dc


Wed Mar 21, 10:29 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
U.S. Navy on Tuesday said it had asserted the "state secrets" privilege in a lawsuit by environmental groups, a move to keep the military from being forced to disclose classified information about the use of sonar believed to injure whales and other animals.

Navy Secretary Donald Winter, in a court filing submitted on Monday, said disclosure of the information requested by plaintiffs "could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to national security."

The state secrets privilege, if upheld, renders information unavailable for litigation. It can be challenged, although the federal government often succeeds in asserting the protection.

"It can be challenged and we intend to challenge it," said Joel Reynolds, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, the group that brought the lawsuit.

The Navy action is the latest in a string of
Pentagon moves to derail the group's lawsuit. The Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups say sonar used in routine training and testing violates environmental laws.

They also argue the Navy's sonar injures and kills marine mammals, including whales and dolphins.

Animal welfare organizations have documented cases of mass whale strandings and deaths around the world that they say are associated with sonar blasts thought to disorient marine mammals and sometimes cause bleeding from the eyes and ears.

In January, the Pentagon exempted the Navy for two years from a law protecting whales so that it could continue using the sonar during training. That removed one legal avenue for environmental groups to challenge Navy sonar.

The Navy said Tuesday's action should keep it from complying with requests from the plaintiffs in the lawsuit for specific information on all non-combat use of military sonar.

Plaintiffs had requested information on the latitude, longitude, time and date, duration, and name of the exercise for every non-combat use of military sonar by the U.S. Navy anywhere in the world, according to the court filing.

A Navy official said the information would hurt both U.S. national security and relationships with countries that participate in naval exercises with the United States.

"We were left no other alternative but to assert the state secrets privilege," the official said. "We're being asked to make public properly classified information. Our role is to provide for this nation's security and providing that information would be detrimental to that mission."
========
Thanks to the U.K. it may not be a secret to much longer. Someone should have told the U.K's Foreign Minister to shut the f--k up and just worry about getting her troops back, instead of whinning about I want my equipment back, I want my equipment back. No interest until you opened your mouth.

even flow?

dangerboy wrote:

several years ago we had this issue here in north carolina....with gm corn and monarch butterflies. somebody in the west/central part of the state started growng some gm corn, and within two years, almost none of the butterflies came back after migration. i believe the state stepped in, and the butterflies returned to normal after a coule more years...

Did they change the crops? Did the butterflies just start coming back? Did they come back to a different local?

macgyver06

bees are such over-achieving bitches!!

sweetpotato

i am bee-phobic, so i say lock 'em up until we run outa honey.

RolandTD20Kdrummer

oh that's a good one... :rolleyes:

dangerboy

even flow? wrote:

Did they change the crops? Did the butterflies just start coming back? Did they come back to a different local?

stopped the gm corn....i'll see if i can find a link

macgyver06

why can't the africanized bees find work!

norm

where did all the bees go?

gue_barium

cutback wrote:

where did all the bees go?

This is getting freaky.

I'm thinking Monsanto....

electronblue

i was taking sky photos a few days ago and these bees flew over me and headed straight to a neighbors shed...~

breakmarysfall

Unfortunately I am not able to read the article, but I can assume now what is about.
The news hit our media as well three weeks ago and "Der Spiegel" did an article about it.

In the US they said that the loss of bees hit already around 60 % of the population.
In Germany we have lost 20 percent of our bee population and we are highly alarmed. The article also pointed out that most bees have vanished in the east part of Germany where we make tries with GM food.

So some scientists of the university of Jena as well as of DEMETER (organic food community) did research for the reason and assume now that it is probably related to Genetic manipulated food!!!
They would need more money to invest further, but unfortunately no State or other company wants to support this research....

..I wonder why?

At the end of the article they headlined a statement of EINSTEIN, who said that if bees die out, there are only four more years for Humans to live as all food is somehow related to bees.
So hey hey, we would starve to death as Mr. Einstein was sure of.